Australia's biggest tourism market returns with a whimper
The widely expected wave of returning Chinese tourists Down Under has turned out to be a trickle as the visa rules
Australia is still cut from a list of destinations approved by Beijing for group overseas travel, effectively halting a two-decade program that had helped China dominate Australia's A$45 billion international tourism market until early 2020.
Key takeaways
- Beijing did not give a reason for ending Australia's ADS status, but travel industry participants say geopolitics has played a role, with relations at a low ebb amid trade disputes and increasingly strident security rhetoric between the West and China;
- Flights from mainland China to Australia were just one-fifth of pre-pandemic capacity in February;
- At the same time, total Chinese outbound border crossings had reached two-thirds of pre-pandemic levels.
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